Greg Hinz On Politics

Dear Senate candidates: Try sticking to the truth

Tuesday morning, around the time that Mark Kirk was apologizing for exaggerating his record, the name of Alexi Giannoulias came up in testimony in the Rod Blagojevich trial.

Mr. Giannoulias and union leader Tom Balanoff had been pushing for the then-governor to name Valerie Jarrett to the U.S. Senate. But when Mr. Balanoff called Mr. Giannoulias to tell him Ms. Jarrett had withdrawn, Mr. Giannoulias responded, "Maybe he'll appoint me."

The remark was "in passing," Mr. Balanoff said. But, according to the Sun-Times, he took it seriously enough that he told Mr. Giannoulias that he would run it by Mr. Blagojevich, who responded quite negatively.

So it has gone and continues to go in the Senate contest — apologies notwithstanding from both GOP nominee Mr. Kirk and Democratic nominee Mr. Giannoulias for various transgressions.

Mr. Giannoulias' problem is that voters learned about his Senate interest not from him but from federal court testimony — testimony that instantly was e-mailed around by GOP operatives.

All Mr. Giannoulias had said up to that point was that he was pushing for Ms. Jarrett. That statement was, at best, incomplete.

Similarly, voters learned about holes in Mr. Kirk's résumé not from him but from the media. And yet, even at yesterday's mea culpa press conference, Mr. Kirk — right after promising to lay out issue differences between the candidates — couldn't wait to go on the offensive about "mob loans" approved by the Giannoulias family's now-defunct Broadway Bank.

Folks, can't we do better than this?

One of these two guys almost certainly is going to end up representing Illinois, but I suspect that, even months before the election, lots of voters are disgusted with both of them.

Gentlemen, I realize this is politics and that this is Illinois. Full contact, with lots of scratching and gouging.

But if neither one of you can quite maintain the high road, how about an easier challenge: sticking to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Each of you has squads of opposition researchers, spinners and flaks to pore over every word your rival utters every day. If you fib, you're gonna get caught. So try sticking to the truth — the whole truth — OK?